Iraq Gives Hill Wake-Up Call On Export Controls

In the aftermath of two important congressional hearings on U.S. exports of militarily relevant technology to Iraq, the Center for Security Policy offered a critical guide to legislative provisions now pending on Capitol Hill that threaten greatly to make matters significantly worse.

The Center’s analysis, entitled Will Congress Restore U.S. Technology Security? Export Controls’ Imminent Moment of Truth, describes how past congressional initiatives aimed at severely restricting the role of the Defense Department in export administration have contributed to the deplorable release to Baghdad of nuclear, chemical, biological and ballistic missile-related technologies. It warns that key elements of H.R. 4653, the "Export Facilitation Act of 1990," now in Senate-House conference are designed to restrict Defense’s role even further, setting the stage for additional — and potentially even more dangerous — technology transfer fiascoes in the future.

In releasing its paper, the Center strongly endorsed the sentiments of the chairman of the House Government Operations Commerce Subcommittee on Commerce, Rep. Doug Barnard (D-GA), who said the following at the conclusion of his subcommittee’s 27 September hearing on export controls:

I am sure I voted for the extension of the Export Administration Act [H.R. 4653], probably innocently though. The fact is that maybe we were being a little bit too liberal in what we were doing in that regard. So I certainly would admonish the conference, especially because of the information which has developed since the bills were passed, to look at this conference very, very carefully. I would also — if I [were] President of the United States — take a new look at it myself as far as the veto is concerned.

 

Chairman Barnard’s statement reflected the serious concerns raised at the hearing in testimony provided by members of former Reagan Administration officials Richard Perle and Stephen Bryen and in questioning by Rep. C. Christopher Cox (R-CA) — all members of the Center’s Board of Advisors. In arguing for a strengthened role for the Department of Defense, Perle observed:

…The control of the export of sensitive technology is too important to be left entirely to one department of the government, and especially to a department that has as its principal mission the promotion of American exports. We know from the German case that when a single department has all, or nearly all the authority to license sensitive exports, significant elements in the industrial establishment in that country will sell anything to anybody.

 

Copies of Will Congress Restore U.S. Technology Security? may be obtained by contacting the Center.